Western Digital Hard Drive Problem

[davidleehansel]

I'm tying to do my friend a favor and put either win98,win98se, or winxp home onto a harddrive he gave me, when I disconnected my other harddrive and hooked that up and started my computer, it showed a win 98 screen and then stayed there for a couple of minutes, then evntually said:
Data error reading drive c
Abort,Retry,ignore,fail?
I tried every option listed above, but none worked. I even tried starting it in safe mode, and it didn't work. Should I just create a new partition and set winxp home, or is there a simpler way. Please help. Thank you,David.

 

[micker377]

A little more info on your computer. Is the hard drive detection set for "auto" in CMOS? Is CMOS detecting the hard drive?

 

[davidleehansel]

Yes it detects it in cmos, and yes it reads it and popsup the win98 starting screen, but it dosen't load it jays says:
Data error reading drive c
Abort,Retry,ignore,fail?
My computer setup is listed below:
Intel P-4 2.8
nivida 128 graphics card
512 + 256 DDR memory
5.1 live sound blaster sound card
Intel network card
56k momdem
CD-Rom
DVD-Rom
CD-RW
DVD-RW
my harddrive is a hatchi 80 gig hd
But the one im working on is a western digital 40 or 60 im not exactly shure.
Also, if I made a ms-dos start up disk and put in and start would it load to where I can put a winxp home disc in and it reads it, so I can install it. Thank you for your help. David

 

[michaltj]

First of all, if you setup XP and give the HDD back to your friend, XP won't work, it will complain (at least to my knowledge).
About the read error, I would guess it's a bad sector. Run a scandisk on the HDD.

 

[davidleehansel]

so it would be needed to setup when its hooked to his computer to set up winxp home, and how would I run scandisk on it. It won't even start the right way.

 

[michaltj]

If there is no data you need on friend's HDD, you can simply format it on his computer during XP installation process. Make sure you select FULL format.

If you need to grab any data of the friend's HDD, hook it up to your PC, but boot the system from your HDD. ( I assume you have win XP?)

Your motherboard should have 2 IDE connectors, primary and secondary. If you're connecting firend's HDD to primary IDE connector, make sure yours HDD is set to be master, friend's HDD to be slave. Same procedure applies if you are connecting friends HDD to secondary IDE controller. If you have a CD, DVD drive or HDD on that controller, check what is it set to (Master or Slave). If master, set friends HDD to slave, if slave, set HDD to master.
Before you boot into XP, go into BIOS, and set hard drive type to AUTO.

In your operating system, go to "My computer". Left click on the icon representing friend's HDD, select properties, go to tab TOOLS, click CHECK NOW button, select both check boxes and click start. This will take some time, and hopefully will fix your problem. Then grab what you need. Install the drive in friend's PC and start XP installation (format HDD using FULL format).

 

[davidleehansel]

Yes I have win xp home, the hardrive apparently has win98 on it. When I do have it hooked to my computer it's the only one I have hooked. I disconnect my harddrive incase anything goes wrong. But the jumper settings on my friends harddrive are set to master when it's connected to my computer. I can't conect both at the same time. I think it's do to the fact I dont have a raid program. If I download one and set it up would it let me run the tw harddrives at the same time or would it have to be serial ata. Also, how would I format a hardrive that wont start up all the way. I put the winxp home cd in the cd drive and connected my friends harddrive but it didn't boot from the cd. It read it but didn't boot from it. Yes, I changed the boot procedure to the cd-rom first, the hardrive second, and the floppy third. It still didn't do it. Is there a way for me to just completely format the drive to where I give it to my friend clean and ready for a new installation of win xp home. Basically like a new harddrive from the store.
I tried to run scandisk on C drive but it said I didn't have sysconfig.sys on the floppy, so that didn't work.

 

[michaltj]

If you want to install XP, then it should be done on your friend's computer. During installation HDD will be formatted anyway, just make sure you select full format.

If you want to install 98, then that's a different story. Do you know how many connectors for HDD, CD/DVD devices you have inside your PC and what are their types (ATA or Seria ATA).

You do not need RAID to connect more that one hard hard drive.

What do you mean that XP CD was read, but did not boot? Usually you have a message asking you to press some key to boot from CD.

 

[davidleehansel]

Just one more question?
How would I format the hardrive when it is hooked up to my computer and it's connected by the ide connector, so when I do give it to my friend and I give him the harddrive, he can pop in the win xp home cd I gave him and have him install it on his own computer.
So my question is how would I format if I can't get it to start on my computer. Or I can't and there's no way to save this harddrive.
Whenever I even try to start uo my computer on my friends harddrive it boots but it dose not go through the right steps and then it dosen't start win98. Could I use command prompt and fix the problem.

 

[michaltj]

If you want to format the HDD on your PC, you can attach both HDDs, yours and your friend's, boot from yours and then format friend's HDD.

If you have Win98 rescue disk, you can boot from it and then format friend's HDD, but then again, you will need to format the friend's HDD in friend's PC again, during XP installation.

Your friend needs a CD drive in computer and also ability to boot from it.

 

[davidleehansel]

Would you happen to know a website where I can a win98 rescue disk. If not thank you anyway. You been a lot of help, Ill try this and if it dosen't work Ill just take it to the shop or something. Thank you.

 

[michaltj]

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

Select Windows 98 SE OEM